Ableton Live and Designing for Authenticity

In "Ableton Live and Design with Authenticity", Ableton Principal Designer Eric Carl shares a behind-the-scenes look at why Live, an influential tool for making and performing music, has endured for 25 years. Rather than treating software as a neutral container for features, Live has long aimed to feel like an instrument: direct, reliable, and expressive, with a design that supports experimentation and focus. Eric traces the product’s foundational ideas and the values that continue to shape decisions large and small, from interface details to the way features evolve over time. The talk also explores how collaboration actually works in practice. Eric unpacks how cross-disciplinary teams bring features to life through shared passion, craft, and constructive debate, balancing user needs with technical realities and long-term product coherence. You’ll hear a candid view of the trade-offs, iterations, and small decisions that shape what ships. Ultimately, this is a talk about authenticity in product design: what it looks like when a tool’s purpose, the people building it, and the everyday decisions behind the work align. Attendees will leave with practical reflections on building software with clarity, integrity, and care.